The Memoirs of an American Citizen Part 19

"Well, I don't know; it depends how you call it."

But she gave me another kiss, and before we could recover from this argument there was a knock at the dressing-room door.

"My, Van! There's the first of them, and I haven't my dress hooked. You run and send Mary to me!" That rather closed the topic for the present.

There were ten of us at dinner, and we tried to keep up a chatter about the little things that Sarah had trained me to talk of when I was in company--the theatres and the opera, Mrs. Doodle's new place in the country, or old Steele's picture by the French painter. But to-night it was hard work: my thoughts would wander back to the Yards. At last the ladies left us to put on their wraps, and the men were lighting their cigars, when a servant told me that a man was waiting in the hall to see me. It was Carmichael.

"Why didn't you come right out, John?" I exclaimed. "Some of your friends are out there."

"No, thanks, Van," he growled. "I ain't got my fancy clothes on this trip, and maybe your wife wouldn't think me good enough for her friends"

(which was pretty close to the truth). "But I come to see you about something important."

Sarah rustled into the hall just then.

"Van!" she said, bowing coldly to John, "we are all waiting for you."

"Better go, Harrington," Carmichael said sarcastically, reaching for his hat; "business don't count when there's a party goin' on."

"Oh, it's business!" Sarah's voice could carry a deal of scorn.

"Leave a ticket for me and I'll follow later," I replied impatiently, leading Carmichael into my library.

"Very well," Sarah answered, and swept out of the hall without a look for the Irishman.

Carmichael took a cigar, poured out a long drink of whiskey, and thrust his ungainly figure into a chair before the fire without saying a word.

After a time he ripped out:--

"You aren't thinking of staying with old Dround?"

"That depends--" I began.

"Dround'll go broke inside of two years," he interrupted savagely. "His credit ain't much to boast of now, and when it gets around that I have drawn out, it won't improve."

"That's true enough," I admitted.

"The London and Chicago Company is going into the hands of receivers this week," he went on confidentially. "That was another of your tony houses managed from England! Strauss'll most likely get their plants at twenty cents on the dollar, and he'll get Dround when the time comes."

I made no remark, and after smoking for a time he leaned over toward me, saying impressively:--

"Young feller, do you reckon you can buck up against me and the Strauss crowd with that one-horse rig?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_Young feller, do you reckon you can buck up against me and the Strauss crowd with that one-horse rig?_"]

It seemed to me highly improbable that any man could perform this feat, but I held my tongue. Carmichael should make his bid in his own way.

Finally he whispered almost solemnly:--

"Want to make big money?"

And he began to bid, lowering his loud voice and beating the arm of his chair to clinch his argument. He spoke of the great revolution throughout the business world, coming consolidations, far-reaching plans that the Strauss people had had in mind for a long time, the control of railroads and steamship lines--all leading to one conclusion, one end--the complete mastery of food products by Strauss and his allies.

We had in more whiskey and cigars for the Irishman, who had a head like a rock. As he drank and talked, his brain was fired by a kind of rude imagination for the vast reach of what he saw. He opened himself to me without reserve, as if he already held me in his hand. The hours sped by; a carriage drove up to the house, and I knew that Sarah had returned from the theatre. But Carmichael talked on. Through his words I could see those vast industrial forces that had been shaping themselves for ages now fast rushing on toward their fulfilment. Ever since my head had been above the horizon, so to speak, I had seen straws borne on this wind. But now the mighty change was imminent; those who survived another decade would look out upon a very different world from that we had grown up with. That is what Carmichael and I saw that night, and when the door finally closed on my visitor I felt that it was settled: I should fight with the stronger army, side by side with Carmichael....

I was standing before the dead fire, thinking, when the door opened and Sarah came in, her hair loosened over her white dressing-gown. She looked strangely pale and troubled.

"Van!" she cried sharply. "What have you to do with that dishonest Carmichael? What business has he with you? He makes me afraid; and you never came to the theatre at all!"

"You're dreaming, Sal." I took her on my knee. "John just came to tell me how to make your everlasting fortune."

"But you are not to leave Mr. Dround?"

"Just that."

"Leave Mr. Dround and go with that dishonest man! What are you thinking of, Van Harrington?"

That instinct of women, which people talk about, sometimes acts like a fog: it keeps them from seeing any one thing clearly. Sarah could only see the Drounds and the piece in the paper about bribing. So we talked it over, like husband and wife, arriving nowhere in particular, and finally I said at random:--

"You would like to be rich, to have a lot of money, more than you ever thought to have--millions, maybe?"

"Would it mean all that?" she asked slowly.

I laughed at the way she took my bait.

"Millions and millions, maybe."

"Would it be dishonest, Van?"

"We don't calculate on going to prison," I joked.

"Well," she reflected, "of course you know best. I don't believe a woman should interfere in her husband's business. But the Carmichaels and the Strausses are such common people, even if they are so awfully rich. They haven't the position the Drounds have."

When it came to that I kissed her and put out the lights.

In this life few intimacies fill the full orb of a man's being. Most men of affairs whom I have known, very wisely shut down their desks before coming home, and shut therein a good slice of themselves. Perhaps they do not care to trust any one, even a wife, with their secrets. Perhaps they do not need to share those restless hours of anxiety that come to all men who go into the market to make money. The wife should mean peace and affection: that is right and proper. Nevertheless, there come times when a man must talk out his whole soul to one who understands the language of it. For he hungers to say to another what he scarcely dares say to himself, what is shut up in the dark of his thoughts. It is not advice that he needs, but sympathy--to reveal to another that web of purpose which he has woven, which is himself. Many a man who has carried burdens silently long years knows what I mean. The touch of hand to hand is much: the touch of mind with mind is more.

Not that Sarah and I failed to be good married lovers. She was my dear wife. But there are some last honesties that even a wife penetrates not--moments when the building of years is shaking in the storm; moments of loneliness, when mad thoughts arise in a sober head, and a man gropes to find what there is not even in the heart of the woman he loves.

Dround was not at the office the next morning: they telephoned from his house that he was ill. Worry, perhaps, had brought on one of his nervous attacks. Meantime, it was easy to see the effect of Carmichael's loss all over the place. Down to the girls in the mailing room, the force knew that something was wrong with the concern. You can't keep real news from spreading: people are good conductors of electricity; their thoughts leak. In any business, the trouble at the head runs all along the line to the office boys.

Later in the day there came a message from Mr. Dround asking to see me at his house before I went home. It was plain enough what he wanted of me, and I disliked the coming interview. For I should have to tell him that I had decided to desert to his enemies. There was no other way, as I saw it. And yet it seemed like ingrat.i.tude. That was what his wife would think, and I saw her looking at me, a scornful smile on her lips.

However, this was no matter for sentiment. If her husband had been another sort of man,--if he had any dare in him,--it might have been worth while to try a fall with Carmichael and Strauss. But as it was, I felt no desire to follow a funeral. Maybe she would understand....

As I turned into the avenue near Dround's house there was a fresh little breeze from the lake, blowing the smoke away from the city and cooling the air after the warm day. It was quiet and peaceful on the broad avenue--a very different kind of place from the dirty Yards whence I had come. It made me feel all the more that Dround didn't belong in Packington.

I sat waiting some time for Mr. Dround, and was growing impatient when his wife came into the room.